Friday, October 22, 2010

12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies: Holly Berry Cookies

The entire family would be there: grandparents, their six kids & spouses, & the 19 grandchildren. It got loud & too hot, but we had fun. Lots of laughter before, during & after the seemingly-endless 'youngest-to-oldest' or vice versa gift giving.

Grammy didn't really bake. It's not that she couldn't, but I think being the oldest girl of ten kids herself & mother to six, the years of putting three meals a day on the table left her with little desire for baking. (I pretend the zucchini bread didn't happen.)

She might make her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. My own mother, at least in the later years, would bring sugar & other types.

In my late teens/early twenties, I started making cookies for the family get-together.

But it was Kathy's Holly Berry cookies that I always craved.

Crunchy, sweet but not too sweet, with that jolt of spice from the 'berries'.

I got the recipe from my Aunt some years ago, even though, as a vegetarian, I could no longer eat them myself. I continued making them for the family, & for my new family. (My brother-in-law is a huge fan.)